I just heard that soft-spoken comedian Bob Newhart signed on as the headliner at a conference sponsored by the ultra-homophobic Legatus organization. I knew he wasn't exactly a gay ally, but it's shocking to discover that one of the iconic figures of my childhood is an enemy.
When I was a kid in the 1960s, teenagers like
my boyfriend's big brother Mike would giggle hysterically over comedy records like
The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart and
The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back. Bob would have one-sided telephone conversations that got more and more frustrating, until he yelled "Same to you, fella!" and hung up.
When I was in high school (1975-78), the in-crowd all watched a group of "
hip sitcoms," about liberal, young, single or recently divorced adults living in big cities:
The Mary Tyler Moore Show, One Day at a Time, Alice... and
The Bob Newhart Show (1972-78).
Bob Hartley wasn't single, and he was well over 40, but he had a cool job as a psychologist and an apartment in an upscale Chicago high-rise. Plus a hunky ladies-man coworker (Peter Bonerz) and a gay-vague next door neighbor (Bill Daily, who played
Leif Garrett's lover on an episode of CHIPS).
In "Some of My Best Friends" (October 9, 1976), Bob's therapy group gets a new member -- gay! The other patients want to lynch him, of course, but Bob preaches tolerance. It was the first time I ever heard the word "gay" on tv, and instrumental in my high school
discovery of gay people.When I was in grad school in Indiana, and on through Hell-fer-Sartain State College and finally West Hollywood, I watched
Newhart (1982-1990), with another Bob as a city boy relocated to a rural Vermont inn, beset-upon by wacky townsfolk. No particular gay content, but some beefcake, such as Kirk (Steve Kampmann, left), owner of the cafe next door; and then yuppie tv producer Michael (a buffed Peter Scolari, top photo). And you had to love hayseed Larry and his brothers, both named Darryl.
I haven't seen a lot of Bob Newhart since 1990. He has starred in two more series that didn't last long
, plus a lot of guest spots on tv. In
In and Out (1997), he plays a homophobic principal who fires outed teacher Kevin Kline.
In 2013, he appeared on
The Big Bang Theory twice, as a former tv science-program host who was one of Sheldon's childhood heroes.
Hey, Bob -- Jim Parson, who plays Sheldon, is gay.
